All referenced patents and applications and publications are incorporated herein by reference in their entirety. Furthermore, where a definition or use of a term in a reference, which is incorporated by reference herein is inconsistent or contrary to the definition of that term provided herein, the definition of that term provided herein applies and the definition of that term in the reference does not apply.
Aseptic fluid connectors are necessary for conveniently making fluid connections between systems without contaminating the inside of the system with microorganisms. Uses include making sterile connections for biomedical applications, and making sterile connections for bioprocessing applications. With the growing adoption of single use bioprocessing systems, a number of aseptic fluid connectors have reached the market place such as the GE ReadyMate series (U.S. Pat. No. 6,679,529), the Pall Kleenpack series (U.S. Pat. No. 7,523,918), and the Colder Aseptiquik series (U.S. Pat. No. 8,491,016). Commercially available aseptic connectors are typically for a single aseptic connection and do not solve the problem of rapidly making many aseptic connections in parallel. Typically, many single aseptic connectors are used and many single aseptic connections are made one by one.
One scenario where many connections are required is the interconnection of one or more microfluidic devices to fluid sources or receptacles. For example, a single microfluidic bioreactor can require 8 aseptic fluid interconnections and connecting a system of four such microfluidic bioreactors would require 32 aseptic fluid interconnections.
In addition to the inefficiency of manually operating individual aseptic fluid interconnects, the physical size of the large number of aseptic fluid interconnects is undesirable. The size of the aseptic fluid interconnects significantly increases the overall size of the microfluidic device packaging, and also increases the footprint of the complete microfluidic system.
U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/750,982 discloses apparatus and methods for making aseptic connections between a set of bottles and a microbioreactor device. The apparatus comprises a fluid interface with conduits having openings on a planar surface of the fluid interface that correspond to openings in the microbioreactor device, a gasket sealed to the planar surface of the fluid interface, where the gasket has openings corresponding to the conduit openings. A first sealing tape tab protects the gasket and corresponding fluid interface from contamination, and a second sealing tape tab protects the microbioreactor device from contamination. To make the aseptic connection, the tape tabs are folded over themselves and the microbioreactor device is aligned to the fluid interface gasket with alignment features. Using manual pressure, the tape tabs are brought into contact and pressed together. While continuing to apply pressure the tape tabs are pulled out, exposing the aseptic surfaces protected by the tape and allowing them to contact. The manual pressure applied provides the initial seal, and the final seal is made by applying a spring clamp to seal the microbioreactor device onto the fluid interface gasket.
While this system does enable many aseptic connections to be made in parallel in a small form factor, it is prone to operator error due to the manual pressure required to form the initial seal while the tape tabs are pulled, and the degree of manual dexterity required to apply the final spring clamp while maintaining the initial manual seal.
patent application Ser. No. 14/385,307 discloses a multiport aseptic connector, however it requires two different sealing materials, a fluid tight gasket, and a compressible foam in order to make an aseptic connection. In addition, this connector requires a separate clamp in order to make the final connection, which is inconvenient when a large number of connections need to be made.
Thus, there remains a considerable need for easy to use and easy to manufacture apparatus to perform rapid, multiport, aseptic fluid interconnects in a compact form factor.